Brapness

I returned... Last couple of years have been ... well I realised a month or 2 ago that I had turned into one of those sickening "inspiring" stories of carrying on despite your problems. To hell with that, I wanna play KSP!

Splattered across the side of the VAB following a parachute mishap after 1.02 changed them. The green smear next to her is Bob, who was on the same flight

That's not just a problem with the internet, it's a problem with society in general. Plenty of people who claim to be realists are just pessimists in denial. In defiance of their expectations both good and bad things happen, which is what pisses them off I think...

I'd say I'm a glass half-full guy myself, or at least I try to stay zen about things that I'm not happy with. I love that another update gives me more to play with to add to the 550+ hours I've put into this game. That said I empathize with people frustrated over things like the mk1 pod being aerodynamically unstable when a materials/utility bay and heat shield is attached, since it seems an obvious problem to spot in testing. Altogether I think the problem is that many are too optimistic in the build-up to an update, and disappointed when it doesn't live up to their vague expectations of brilliance. Give it a week or two and the worst bugs will be ironed out, the forum will calm down and settle in to the new build and people will be back to space-talk and kerbal lovin'.

Reminds me of some strange lights I saw from Duna orbit. At first I thought it was a graphics glitch with the sun shining through the planet, but the sun was much further left. They vanished as I continued my ejection burn. Some Kerbals believe the lights are spirits of lost kerbals trying to lure other travelers down into crashes. Maybe what you'e found is something similar

Every SSTO I ever tried to build before rapiers were added and quite a few afterwards. I am awful at building planes

Jeb was murdered by the Kraken on a return trip from the Mun. His ship was torn apart and tossed out of the system. The capsule survived but when I returned to the tracking station it had vanished. I like to think he's still out there... Bill was killed when a prototype space-plane he was testing crashed on take-off. Bob is presently mission commander of a 3 man space station in Kerbin orbit.

I constructed a new shuttle to assist in crew transfer. Significantly lowers the cost of rotating my station crew and has enough spare fuel to reliably deorbit to the KSC by following a steep descent path (because I'm terrible at judging aerobraking).

Personally I wouldn't say sci-fi was ruined for me. I still enjoy it, though I do also have fun pointing out inaccuracies, so it's fair to say KSP annoys my flatmate. I only really get annoyed when they try to portray something that is clearly wrong as science, rather than relying on suspension of disbelief. There are a lot of good hard sci-fi books out there that take into account real physics. One thing that does annoy me though is often when people complain about orbits when the technology is so far advanced an orbit is the equivalent of parking. If your ship can reach near the speed of light quickly, orbital maneuvering is irrelevant. Provided it's not through the planet you can burn straight for your target. If your ship is shielded sufficiently that reentry damage is irrelevant, you'll enter the atmosphere as quickly as possible, rather than a safer shallow descent. And if your ship bends space-time you do not need to be in an orbit to safely park above a planet.

Had a launch failure on a refueller that was headed to my space station. It broke up as it left the atmosphere basically leaving a field of debris on a sub-orbital trajectory. I then saw the icon from my station shoot past at about 500m/s, missing the debris field by 200m. That's the closest space debris collision I've ever had. And another time on launch my rocket began to spiral so I fired the abort system. The two kerbals inside were fine until one of the solid rocket boosters, still firing, spiralled into them. There were no survivors....

I love the contracts. It causes me to design and fly missions I never would have done otherwise, as well as keep sub-assemblies of smaller launchers because they're cheaper than the new ones. I never would have run a mission which was to reach a specific altitude with a specific payload of parts to test on a sub-orbital trajectory before, so I think its added a tonne of value. That said if I have one complaint its this, I've got too much money. I normally return only the capsule and I've still got 1.5 million funds after going to the Mun and Minmus, after crashing 5 missions. My average rocket only costs about 20,000. I recognize that new players, who don't have my experience, might not have that problem but there should be something for older players. Personally I think they should insert a difficulty slider for contracts (and perhaps science) that just multiplies the cost of parts (and tech). You have standard, hard (3x), harder (5x) and hardest (10x). I'm not sure I understand the argument against the 'test parts' missions. Yeah the 'landed at Kerbin' ones are somewhat dull, but the rest give you a mission objective. People are saying they want the contracts to focus on big picture stuff but that was all I did before 0.24. I've been to Jool, I've been to Duna, I've been everywhere; it was my impression that contracts were supposed to expand the game, not just pay me to do what I already did. Contracts without part testing is pretty much science mode. So I like the missions that have objectives and specific criteria. That said I hope they add more to make it more interesting. Say launch the a pre-built satellite that's been placed in subassemblies to 'here', or rescues that require you to refuel and fly a ship or probe back to kerbin. Also I want more biomes, but that's not related.

After exploring the Kerbin system, I'm looking at about 1.5 million funds. That includes 4 or 5 rockets lost due to glitches (I seem to be getting the launch kraken a lot more often these days) and one lost because the fuel lines were on backwards. I've avoided quicksaves and reverting so that I'm forced to pay for my mistakes (or unfortunate circumstances).

Started up the new career mode, accepted first launch contract, Jeb launches on a simple pod on SRB rocket. Forgot to manage staging so the parachute opened on launch, the rocket span out of control and Jeb was killed. This does not bode well for the new space agency. ... Completed the contract though

Finally made a working SSTO spaceplane. Jeb and Bill then stole it after Jeb heard reports of pretty lights at the north pole. Also broke my jet speed record, Jeb clocked it in at 2.1km/s by the time he reached the pole

Went to Duna from Moho via a sun fly-by, not sure what the delta-v figures are but I went from 10,000 units of fuel down to 50.